Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas (Time via @ThisIsTrue). Some are disturbing, but I like the staple-free stapler.
Author Archives: Kelson
Reach for the Sky
Spotted in Old Town San Diego.
Coffee Cliché
Realized I’m doing the cliche coffee+laptop+wifi thing…except I’m at home with coffee I brewed myself and using my own network.
Pushing Daisies Finale Mini-Review
Pushing Daisies had a satisfying don’t-call-it-an-ending. Looking forward to the comics.
Link Archive
I used to keep a sidebar linkblog here, but I’ve long since stopped. These days I’m more likely to post an interesting link to Twitter, or just save it up for a later post. I figured the WordPress 2.8 upgrade was as good a time as any to clean out the old plugin.
Still, I hate removing things from the web, so here’s an archive of 2½ years’ worth of linkblogging from 2005-2007. Continue reading
The Twitpocalypse Explained in Layman’s Terms
It’s a trending topic, but there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the Twitpocalypse. Here’s what’s going on, in layman’s terms (I hope).
What’s happening?
- Every Twitter post has an ID number that goes up by 1 each time.
- When a computer program stores a number, it sets aside a certain amount of space for it. Bigger numbers take more space because they have more digits.
- One common format is called a “signed integer.” It has 32 binary digits (1 or 0 only) with one digit set aside to indicate a minus sign. The biggest number it can store is 2,147,483,647.
- Twitter’s status IDs are approaching that number.
So what’s the likely impact?
- Twitter itself can handle bigger numbers and will be fine.
- Third-party apps that store the ID in a bigger format will be fine.
- Third-party apps that store the ID as text instead of a number will be fine.
- Third-party apps that store the ID in this particular format will end up with bad IDs as they try to cram a big number into a small space.
If I were to guess, the most likely breakage would be that replies might be attached to the wrong previous post — but again, only with apps that use this particular format for numbers.
Twitter itself will probably sail through cleanly (and has been planning to move up the schedule so that affected app developers don’t have to fix things in the middle of the night), so don’t expect any fail whales. Unless so many clients have problems that lots of people switch to the website.
Update: Not surprisingly, most Twitter clients are unaffected by the Twitpocalypse. I’ve used both Twidroid and Twhirl with no problems since Twitter passed the mark. I figured a few would get tripped up, but the real surprise is that it hit Twitterrific. One of the most popular clients on the iPhone? They do have an update, but a lot of people are unable to connect.
Strange Signs of San Diego (Gaslamp Edition)
Seriously, doesn’t this chair look like it was made of the material they were trying to find a use for in the first episode of Better Off Ted…and turned into a chair so irritating that it increased worker productivity because people couldn’t get comfortable? (You can see it in the middle of this 10-minute preview.)
It was the chair in our hotel room (the converted bank office with the impressive lobby). Fortunately it wasn’t nearly as scratchy as Viridian Dynamics’ “Focus Master.” (Incidentally: more Better off Ted episodes are starting up in a couple of weeks for the summer!)
Some graffiti on plywood in the Gaslamp District area:
And then there was this “You Are Under Surveillance” sign. Something about the combination of the sign, the stairway, and all the posters on the walls just looked interesting.
